Welcome to the Education Support Faire wiki. Support for Real Life Educators in Second Life comes from both Linden Lab and Resident Support Organizations. The goal of this wiki is to provide links and information on all support opportunities that can help Real Life Educators succeed.

This is a living document that will grow and evolve over time. Initially it will be used to share details on the first Education Support Faire on Jan 25-30, 2009.

We plan to use this page as a frequently updated resource that helps direct Real Life Educators to new Linden Lab support channels as well as Resident Support Organizations. Stay tuned!

Welcome to the Faire!

Greetings and welcome to the first annual Real Life Education Support Faire in Second Life.

I'm Pathfinder Linden, and my work at Linden Lab focuses on helping real life educators succeed in using Second Life for educational and teaching purposes.

Linden Lab works very hard to help educators find the support they need to be successful. Our Customer Support team answers a wide range of educator questions through the support ticket system found on our Support Portal. Be sure to check out our new Educator focused section on that page (just click on the image that says "Educators"). We'll be further developing that and adding more resources in the future that are tailored to real life educators in Second Life. Our Concierge team is also accessible via our Support Portal, helping edcuators set up and manage their own regions efficiently.

Also on our Support Portal you will find many Knowledge Base articles written by our Documentation Team, providing answers to common questions that educators may have while setting up classes or islands for teaching purposes. A wealth of knowledge!

Finally, we have a new and growing Customer Market Development team that, in addition to helping other segments, focuses on proactive ways we can support the educator community. Folks on this team like myself, George and Claudia are educator focused, dedicated to helping the real life educator community grow and thrive.

In addition to the resources Linden Lab provides to support educators, it is important to remember additional support opportunities that are available. These include other real life educators who are all potential colleagues and collaborators. A great way to find them is to join the Second Life Educators mailing list (also known as the SLED list) and simply introduce yourself to the community. You can learn more about SLED and join the conversations here.

But the support opportunities are even broader than all those resources.

I like to use the phrase "Ecosystems of Support" when thinking about opportunities for educator success. This includes not only Linden Lab and fellow real life educators, but also the Resident-run organizations that can help real life educators find support. There are organizations that provide classes for anyone who wants to learn basic or advanced Second Life skills. Others provide tools that can help educators design innovative learning modules, integrate with existing course management systems, or gather important statistics on the use of their classrooms in Second Life (critical both in evaluating new learning environments and providing metrics to your administration). Other groups work to organize inworld academic conferences, provide tools for language training in international classes, or help educators pool their collective resources by allowing them to own land next to other educators. There are even organizations that can help you learn more about how to work with students or faculty in Second Life who may be challenged by real life disabilities.

Which is why the theme of this Faire is "Ecosystems of Support." Around you will find representatives from all of these different areas, working together to help educators succeed.

Our hope is that this Faire will not only be a wonderful opportunity for visiting educators to learn more about support opportunities, but also give everyone involved in this beautiful Ecosystem a chance to find each other and discover new ways to help each other help educators succeed.

Please explore and use this wiki page as your guide to the many booths and scheduled events in the central Pavilion. All of us who have worked to organize this event, both Lindens and Residents, welcome you.

Linden Lab Support Resources - Booth Locations

Be sure to stop by these booths between 9am-1pm SLT on Monday, January 26 to speak with Lindens who can help you learn more about what Linden Lab offers to educators in terms of support and strategies for success!

Insight Virtual College - Insight Virtual College is a "bridge between worlds" offering first life teachers the opportunity to teach to Second Life residents. IVC also offers Second Life skills classes such as building, scripting, role play, business, and new resident orientation. Olde (194, 29, 35)

IntelliGroup - Creators of Intellibooks and other Second Life tools for educators and students. - The Ye (197, 104, 30)

The Islands of jokaydia - Olde (145, 42, 35) - The Islands of jokaydia provides a space to explore the uses of virtual worlds in education, the arts and social change. We are self-funded and support a range of events, activities and services. We also host a vibrant community of educators and artists as part of our rental community on the Islands.

The Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education] - Olde (124, 44, 35) - the Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education is a newly launched peer-reviewed academic journal presenting the best writing and thinking available about Virtual Worlds and their possibilities and implications for education. The Journal is seeking contributors and reviewers for upcoming issues, and welcomes institutional and educator input and interest.

Second Life Education Roundtable (SLER) and Montclair State University - Hosted by Montclair State University, SLER’s mission is to provide a roundtable setting for interested parties to discuss various topics relevant to furthering the use of Second Life for education. Roundtables occur weekly and often have up to 50 participants. All are welcome to attend, whether presenting or just sitting in to learn about new possibilities. - Faire (26, 191, 35)

The Tech Virtual - The Ye (211, 155, 29) - The Tech Virtual is a collaborative design platform for developing museum exhibits. Contact us to find out how your museum or university can work with an international group of designers, scientists and curators to design educational exhibits for science and technology centers worldwide!

Archives of Presentations

Presenters at the Faire are encouraged to log in to this wiki (see the far upper right of the screen for the login link) and add links to presentation resources you'd like to share with everyone such as links to archived slides, text transcripts, or SLURLs to places inworld where they can pick up items. Just add them below as you wish.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

2:00 PM Future Of Virtual EducationPresenter: Kitviel SilberbergAbstract: A presentation on Education from Classroom based towards the Virtual Educational Possibilites. Including SL optimization in the Learning environment and requirements for the future. This presentation is based upon the lessons The Learning Experience learned and continues to learn in running an on-line Virtual Free University within SL and on the Web.(PDF of the presentation is available @ the above URL)

4:00pm Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2009 SL Conference (PPS) - Faire (33, 143, 35)Presenter: Phelan Corrimal Abstract: From March 27th to March 29th, 2009 - the education community of Second Life will be hosting a 3 day conference on best practices in education. This conference will promote the best and brightest from the Second Life education community in various fields of practice including everything from demonstrations to hands on theory.

5:00pm The Islands of jokaydia Presentation - Faire (33, 143, 35)Presenter: Jo Kay Wollongong Abstract: The Islands of jokaydia has been part of the education support eco-system in Second Life since 2007. We support a wide range of activities that are designed to assist educators and artists - including our virtual classroom project, our TSL focussed Second Classroom group and a number of diverse projects run by jokaydia residents. We welcome a huge proportion of new educator residents from Australia and New Zealand on our islands and work with a number of educational institutions including education.au, Macquarie University, the University of Adelaide, Sydney Institute of TAFE and St Joseph's College as well as many individual educators who are exploring and experimenting inworld. You can read more about us at: jokaydia.com/about

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

11:00 AM Medicine & Education in Second Life Slides - The Ye (167, 151, 32)Presenter: Biancaluce RobbianiAbstract: As we said, general SL education methods and goals, are valid also to teach and train in scientific/medicine subjects. Team training in emergencies or awareness campaign/educative campaigns can be easily setup and reach a large number of people. A lot of papers are present in the medicine database PUBMED regarding educative and training experiments in VW and SL, reporting a positive result. Nurses courses are made in SL, emergency training is performed with more efficiency due to reduced fear of patient interaction (this takes out the mandatory need, in medicine education, to train people on real patients and give credit on a course performed both in SL/VE and real life). You can read the rest at: Biancaluce Robbiani's Blog

Thursday, January 29, 2009

0:00pm

Friday, January 30, 2009

4:00pm Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2009 SL Conference (PPS) - Faire (33, 143, 35)Presenter: Phelan Corrimal Abstract: From March 27th to March 29th, 2009 - the education community of Second Life will be hosting a 3 day conference on best practices in education. This conference will promote the best and brightest from the Second Life education community in various fields of practice including everything from demonstrations to hands on theory.